Sydney, Australia – Global digital out-of-home (OOH) marketplace VIOOH has announced new hires for its newly created commercial roles in Australia and New Zealand, with Ryan Sullivan as partnerships director and Mitchell Hodges as technical solutions manager

The announcement comes as VIOOH prepares to release its third annual “State of the Nation” for programmatic DOOH report for the Australian market. 

In his new role, Sullivan will be responsible for taking the management of existing media owners forward, supporting them to transform their businesses through programmatic selling. 

Sullivan joins VIOOH from Bench Media, an independent programmatic media agency in Australia. He is also one of Australia’s earliest advocates of programmatic DOOH and brings with him extensive programmatic experience to VIOOH, having worked with numerous brands and agencies over the years, helping to develop their internal programmatic capabilities. 

Meanwhile, Hodges brings with him valuable experience and will provide crucial support for media owners by guiding technical implementation and spearheading revenue growth and partner education.

Prior to his appointment, he was with Yahoo DSP, where he drove omnichannel campaign success and product development across prDOOH, CTV, Video, Audio and Native. Hodges was instrumental in the recent successes in prDOOH from Tourism Tasmania and SIXT Auto Club Membership.

The new hires are a first for the OOH marketplace in the ANZ region, with both positions based in Sydney. They will sit within the commercial team led by Gavin Wilson, global chief customer and revenue officer at VIOOH. 

Currently, VIOOH’s platform has over 40 DSP partnership agreements globally, including live integrations in the ANZ market with CAASie, Google DV360, Hivestack, Lemma, The Trade Desk, Vistar Media and Yahoo DSP, and is the exclusive SSP for JCDecaux Australia and New Zealand, as well as offering programmatic inventory for multiple media owners including Tonic Media Network.

The OOH marketplace is also set to make additional hires in Australia in the coming months to further develop the demand side and ensure operational excellence. 

Speaking on the announcement, Wilson said, “We’re excited about the potential that programmatic digital out of home inventory can deliver to brands and media owners, and these local hires are an indication of the opportunity we see for VIOOH in the ANZ region. We’re seeing positive year-on-year growth in the region, and having resources locally on the ground will drive relationships and trust, and we fully expect revenue to be enhanced as a result.” 

Also commenting on the hires, Jean-Christophe Conti, CEO at VIOOH, said, “Our ambition is to change the conversation about out of home, with a platform to help accelerate transformation in outdoor advertising through automation. VIOOH offers advertisers a more flexible and impactful way to connect with audiences, and provides media owners with the opportunity to access digital budgets and new customers. With programmatic DOOH becoming more mainstream and a must-have on every media plan, I hope ANZ advertisers and media owners alike will maximise this new opportunity to thrive.” 

Sydney, Australia – Impact, the global partnership management platform, has announced four new hires for its Australian team following its latest US$150m funding round last July this year.

The new senior hires are Helena Barroso Zarco as customer success director; while Alex Randall, Georgia Boward, and Catheline Lin join Impact as enterprise account executives.

Zarco has over 11 years experience in affiliate and partnership marketing, most recently as Regional Lead for Acceleration Partners in APAC. During her career, she has managed some of the world’s largest affiliate programs including Sky, eBay Partner Network, Norton and Swarovski.

Meanwhile, Randall brings with him a wealth of experience in the affiliate marketing space, having worked both client and network side since 2016. He has spent the last two years working for Rakuten Advertising Australia.

Furthermore, Boward worked in a number of business development roles in the information security, recruitment, and real estate space over the past five years. She brings valuable SaaS sales experience and expertise to the Impact team.

Lastly, Lin brings in a wealth of knowledge and more than 10 years of experience from the performance and digital marketing space. Most recently, Lin was programmatic account manager at Ziff Davis responsible for building the programmatic team. She has also held various sales roles at Mi9, Microsoft Media, and News Corp.

All four new hires are based in Sydney and follows the creation of two new senior roles at Impact in February, which saw the formation of a partnership team under Sam Morton who was promoted to partnerships director, APAC, and the expansion of its sales operations under Peter Bray’s leadership as sales director, APAC.

“An increasing number of brands and agencies are realizing the incremental revenue and brand lift that a strategic partnership program can bring which means our team is expanding at pace to keep up with increasing demand for our partnership automation software. Marketers are embracing the partnership channel as an alternative customer acquisition to paid search and social efforts and our newest team members will enable us to better scale our APAC expansion plans,” said Adam Furness, managing director for APAC at Impact.

Sydney, Australia – In response to widening its brand experience offering to potential clients, creative agency Orchard has announced three new senior hires namely Gina Hughes as experience director, Alyson Wales as brand experience director and David Mugford as associate digital creative director.

Hughes has been in the industry for over 20 years, leading clients through human-centered design processes to create remarkable customer experiences. She has previously worked as an experience design director at Ogilvy for six years.

Meanwhile, Wales’ career began in the UK, founded in direct marketing and brand building. Since 1999, Wales has worked with some of Australia’s biggest brands and agencies, her client portfolio including The Economist, Tesco Clubcard, Roche, Telstra, among others. She was recently the strategy lead at Ogilvy, where she handled the account of American Express. 

Lastly, Mugford specializes in user interface design and experience, art direction and concept development, with a particular passion for crafting digital experiences that combine creativity and technology. He joins the team with over 10 years of experience, both locally and internationally, across major brands including Volkswagen, Uber, Target, Telstra, among others.

Speaking about the recent appointments, Tim Condrick, creative director at Orchard, said, “Orchard has always been a digital leader in Australia, always at the forefront, constantly adapting and changing to meet future challenges – bringing someone as talented and experienced as David on board continues that tradition and supercharges our ability and determination to invent better.”

Meanwhile, Mikaela Crimmins, head of experience at Orchard, commented, “Orchard has always been the home of different shaped ideas and this requires people who think about brands as not only promises but experiences too. Gina and Alyson strengthen an already diverse mix of thinkers, and bring to Orchard the right amount of experience and spirit we love.”

Singapore – UK-based fintech company Revolut is expanding its Singapore regional team by adding two more key persons to the company’s local growth team.

Sam Chui is Revolut Singapore’s new senior marketing manager, wherein she will be responsible for leading new marketing initiatives and exploring new creative ways to engage with potential customers. Prior to her current position, she has worked previously with marketing brands for UOB, Singtel, and Eu Yan Sang.

“Revolut has been sinking its roots deep into the local market and the opportunity to help drive its growth in the years to come greatly excites me,” Chui says.

Meanwhile, Deborah Tan-Pink, former CEO of edtech startup SmartUp, joins the company’s local rank as senior communications manager, where she will be responsible for brand awareness, media, and public/private organization connections.

“I’m excited to see what wonderful stories we can build around Revolut and its services,” she says. “We mustn’t forget that, ultimately, a customer needs to see how a service fits into their lifestyle and personal aspirations,” Pink stated.

Both of the two new hires will report to Pam Chuang, Revolut Singapore’s head of growth.

With the regional branch of Revolut reaching its first anniversary, Revolut Junior, an app for teaching kids on financial management and Revolut Business, an app for opening business bank accounts, are some of the upcoming services the company will offer this year.

Singapore – Amazon’s live streaming service Twitch has announced that it has appointed two former Dentsu International heads Mandar Kambli and Sunil Yadav to be its newest leads for the APAC team. Kambli will join as Programmatic Enablement Lead, while Yadav will be assuming the role of Agency Development Lead.

In August, Twitch named a new marketing head for APAC, and the latest hires come as it continues to grow its team in Singapore and across the whole region.

Kambli comes to Twitch with 14 years of industry experience with agencies, ad tech, and publishers. He was with Dentsu from 2015-2019 where he led programmatic product, supply, and data initiatives across the region. He was most recently the head of advertising platforms for product listing app Carousell.

Meanwhile, Yadav brings with him 20 years of expertise across advertising, media planning, and digital communications. He was previously president of APAC at Dentsu’s media innovation and investment arm Amplifi where he managed media buying and media partnership. Notably, he built its programmatic agency Amnet, across 14 markets, and launched its content agency TheStoryLab in APAC. Prior to Dentsu, he worked with media agencies Mindshare and Starcom, and TV company Mediacom.

At Twitch, Kambli will be responsible for developing and supporting Twitch revenue growth across multiple regions and sharing his expertise on programmatic. With it, he will be helping enhance Twitch’s work with its customers and manage a number of key relationships. Yadav’s role, on the other hand, will charge him with the task of leading all agency partnership negotiations and relationships. He will help build upon Twitch’s success in other regions to help APAC brands and their media agency partners develop deeper relationships with the brand.

“Our pace hasn’t slowed since our last key hires in APAC, and we’re excited to bring key team members in Mandar and Sunil aboard,” said Steve Ford, vice president of Twitch for sales in APAC.

“As new users in APAC and across the world are continuing to come to Twitch, they’re finding their community and forming lasting bonds with creators. Our continued expansion will make for a better experience for these new users, as well as the brands that excite them. We’re planning even more big hires across APAC in 2020 and beyond, and look forward to taking exciting new steps in a number of markets here,” added Ford.

On the new role, Kambli said, “I’m excited to join Twitch during this period of unprecedented activity and growth in APAC. Twitch is multiplayer entertainment – it’s unique, interactive, live, and such an exciting place to be, whether you are a viewer, creator, advertiser, agency, partner, or anyone in between. And our goal is to work hand-in-hand with everyone to make the most of it.”

Meanwhile, Yadav commented, “On Twitch, everyone comes together to celebrate, learn, and grow their interests and passions, and I’m looking forward to helping agencies to learn about how to best work on Twitch to do new and exciting things. Gaming and live streaming are two areas where APAC’s audience and its passion are unparalleled, and we are just scratching the surface of the exciting new things that are possible for brands on Twitch’s platform.”

Twitch has also announced the start of its first salespeople based in Taiwan, providing a physical presence to support early inroads that Twitch has made with partners and organizations in the country. The new hires in Taiwan join the existing content and marketing teams in its office location.